Scene #1446: Flat Colors

Owner	Pose
Ainsley	The fog remains as grey and smothering as before, looming around the town of Kingsmouth like it was threatening to roll in at any moment. The overcast also meant that it was even darker than it would've otherwise been, the perpetual darkness of the evening still giving the creepy crawlies of the town plenty of darkness to lurk through. This means the place Ainsley has designated as a meeting spot is much more ominous than it would've been before. Grave markers fill the area, not in a perfect arrangement due to the ancient nature of the grounds. Here and there, an undead shambles into sight, but the few that were lingering around the church too closely have been cut down already. The lizard gal has made absolutely sure the party won't be disturbed for this part. What they'd find is a wheelbarrow with a bunch of shovels inside of it. Ainsley already has a shovel in one of her hands, and she's looking around the graveyard with a dim frown on her face. She hasn't begun working yet... she's staring at one of the grave markers, trying to read the worn stone. It's probably pretty clear why they're here... they have to find where this clue is buried.
Riva Banari	NEVER FEAR, RIVA'S HERE! Oh god, we're all doomed. Riva's spinning one of the shovels in her hand kind of like an especially unwieldy cheerleader's baton, humming as she hangs around Ainsley. Apparently, she has no problems with looking over Ainsley's shoulder, because she leans in to do just that. "Sooooooo, what'cha found, Ains? And why are we digging up someone's corpse to do it?"
Zephyr Windstar	Zephyr's here... somewhere. The dim glow of her magic would likely mark her easier than trying to pick her out of the thick fog. <WIDE AREA SEARCH! MAGESIGHT SHIFT!> chimes the broad axe of the girl's device, as a multitude of light motes spall off from her location, sweeping out to the perimeter to keep an eye open for anything coming in. Visual systems would be pointless in the peasoup fog, so she's swapped them to Magesight, a fancy term she just made up for 'Magical Signatures'. The local magecraft might not be exactly fitting to her own, but it /should/ in theory trigger the perimeter alarms if something tries to interfere. "Sis, everyone else? Perimeter's up... I'll keep my eyes open and give you s'much warnin' as I can if anythin' shows up."
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone is here to help as best she can even if she's not got a lick of magic to her and she looks about armed and ready she's wearing a slightly ratty suit of Carapace armour from XCOM tonight and she seems on edge, she's also hoping she doesn't need to go under ground again, but she's also got a shovel slung over a shoulder as she arrives.
Wuyin Tsai	Zephyr's Magesight is a little... strange, here. The whole island has all kinds of magic just permeating it, both down in the soil and up in the air. The fog seems to be interfering with the sweep, as it interferes with just about every other kind of wide-ranging search. It's creepy. Wuyin, who has nothing to do with the fog, comes around the side of the church the big ol' graveyard is behind. He walks up and grabs a shovel, taking stock of the area with a curiously practiced eye. "The priest shouldn't bother us. He's... praying." He sticks the tip of the shovel into the soil and leans on the handle a little tiredly. "At least it won't be too difficult to dig, with the ground already overturned. Digging holes in New England is irritating. Too many rocks."
Staren	Staren arrives, in his armor because zombies and filth. Any zombies that get to close are blasted with the beam cannons. Everyone gets friendly nods, though, despite the creepy surroundings. And then... Staren plants a small stone in the ground and focuses for a moment, and then a humanoid form made of dirt rises out of the ground. Staren hands it a shovel.
Ainsley	"The ... painting was our first clue," Ainsley says, beginning her explanation when she looks over her shoulder at Riva. She gestures to the graves, "If the information we received when John opened his big mouth is true, then the source of it would be here. It seems like a longshot or a trap, but honestly, we have no idea what kind of madness has caused this, so we might as well start here. Look for graves that have been dug up recently, or spots where the ground must be disturbed but not marked with a grave marker." She starts searching for just that, stepping through the graveyard with a slow care. She doesn't even know what they're looking for, beyond a grave containing whatever clue they need to make sense of the problem in Aztlan. She hesitates, suddenly, when she notices something off about one of the graves. She kneels near it, and reaches to touch the... blood? No... When she rubs her fingers together, she knows what it is, and the smell is impossible to mistake. "Wet paint?" She turns her head, and sees it on another grave. She grimaces, when she realizes that there are spatters all over some of the gravestones, like someone had gone to a lot of trouble to cover up the names of the gravestones, or through everyone off the scent. "These graves," she indicates, pointing at a few of them. Most of them look like someone took a shovel to them. The soil is tinted verrry subtly red, under the grass and rocks. But there must be a dozen of graves to choose from, and some of them don't even have proper grave markers. Ainsley doesn't take a shovel to any of them, anticipating some kind of trap, if this much effort was taken to conceal where the exact spot is. What now?
Emiya Shirou	When Shirou arrives he's in his jacket, for the place is a bit chilly at this time of day. He's also managed to get smart these days - he's wearing a belt with several useful tools, including a flashlight. Nothing fancy though! And for Kingsmouth he's chosen to wear some armor. Not the knightly platemail Santa brought him, but a different set - some flexible, futuristic materials that fit under his jacket. The downside? Less coverage. When he arrives he immediately spots the surroundings... the shovels... and Ainsley. "Wh-what are we doing here?! That's someone's grave!?" He rushes over to Ainsley, and bends down to get a closer look at just who's buried there. Of course it's very worn, so that's not easy. And then... there's also the paint splatters. "... Trace, on." The boy places a hand against the headstone's facing. "Read basic structure..." And faint mana flows from his fingers and into the carved stone much like an ultrasound would. Although the stone is worn, the masonwork leaves telltale signs on the internal structure near the carving. And paint? Meh. Paint is easy enough to distinguish. No doubt Shirou will be able to figure out the carving pattern... Another pulse of prana later... and the facing glows. The stone slightly reshapes and the paint is peeled back to a corner like peeling a sticker off most of the way. And then the boy lands on his rump. "Hrmngh... who'd have come through wrecking a cemetery?! Disrespecting the dead's a nasty thing to do..."
Wuyin Tsai	Wuyin walks over to the graves, taking a look at them. He clicks his tongue. "That's going to take a little while. I suppose we'd better..." He trails off, watching Shirou do his thing. Wu does not break ground just yet; he stands near the edge of the rows of gravestones and watches instead, deciding to see where this goes. Maybe there's a clue there. Besides, Staren can set off any traps there might be. He has an expendable minion.
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone Yamakawa doesn't like what they are doing but they don't have much choice and she knows its, she clearly crossing her self and muttering a brief prayer asking for forgiveness. Desperate times like this call for desperate measures, she doesn't think those laid to rest here would condem them for trying to stop the madness, right? She takes her shover and goes to one of the graves and gets to work at this point. "Tell me about it but we're dealing with alien things that care nothing about our world or what it infects, Shirou." So she starts digging there's not much she can do otherwise. "If someone has an better idea... let me know."
Zephyr Windstar	Zephyr winces at the Magesight readings coming in. This might be harder than it appeared, but she's powering through it. Divine Wind seems more able to cut through the natural interference, but with so many inputs transmitting, the area search perimeter might have intermittant gaps where something could sneak through. "Lotta interference out here... I'm working on it but I'm having to cycle the inputs so they don't make my brain explode."!
Ainsley	Shirou's work reveals the names of the various people. A great deal of them are English names, people who might've lived here for a very long time. The only one that isn't ... does not have a person's name written on it. When he restores the stone, he'd also be able to tell it's not rock that's native even to this world, and that there is mana permeating the rock. The way the grave is arranged is also strange, now that its difference is plainly visible-- Kotone's shovel slams into the dirt at that grave. Ainsley has seen the differences in this grave, and moves to start helping here as quickly as she can manage, hefting dirt out of the pit and shoveling it out in a pile. The ground is soft and easy to dig out, making this a simple, if time-consuming task. "Help me with this! That marker was put here recently," she points out to the others, pointing at the marker. In big block letters, it say: WE SAW THE TZITZIMIME TWINKLING IN THE BLACK THEY TOLD US THE SECRETS OF THE STARS
Staren	Staren /does/ have an expendible minion! However, Shirou finds the grave and people start digging rather than wait for it. He orders it to dig there -- if there's room for more people to work, and more shovels, he animates more dirt golems. Staren looks at the marker. "Tzitzimime? Sun-eaters?"
Emiya Shirou	"Huaaaah?!" Shirou's baffled by SOMETHING the instant he scans that one headstone. The one Kotone's been working at. He peers at her with suspicion-filled eyes just briefly... "This one's different from the others. There's... some kind of magic at work on it! And.... it's not even any normal rock material! What's that mean?!" But Ainsley's sudden request gets his attention a moment later. He's delayed by a whole fifteen seconds before he tries restoring the facing if necessary...
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone Yamakawa says "Time Line..." Kotone mutters for a moment trying to look away from the markers she wonders about this but ries to not think about it, strange cruptic stuff like that she's learning could be a metnal booby trap after all but she keeps working as best she's able to do so.
Riva Banari	Riva clicks a moment. "Well, all right then." She nods, and starts looking around for a moment, trying to think of where to start. She pauses as Shirou runs up and objects. "Whoa, whoa." She steps out of the way, and Shirou does his Trace thing. She whistles as he repairs the tombstone, wiping away the ages. "Wow, that's handy!" She calls out to Zephyr as the mage works. "KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK, ZEPHYR! DON'T LET YOUR HEAD EXPLODE, INGA HASN'T LEARNED HOW TO FIX THAT YET." As Shirou makes their job way, way easier, Riva moves to start helping... But then there's a lot of cooks in this kitchen, so she backs off. "Who the hell would set up a marker like this in an entirely different world? Do they..." She thinks. "Something's odd about this, but I can't put my finger on it..."
Wuyin Tsai	"Aztec fertility gods," Wuyin says, turning to the indicated grave. He gets to digging, though he lets the people with robot bodies, power armor and golems do the bulk of the work. "They were depicted as female skeletons wearing shell skirts, with, ah... rather /unfortunate/ extra appendages." Dirt turns. Metal bites the miscolored soil. "Solar eclipses were supposedly times when the stars associated with the tzitzimime would be visible, and they'd descend to Earth to devour people. Only at night, only during the rainy months. They were something like demons or devils, but not quite. Bad news all the same." He stops for a second, gauging their depth. Wuyin looks out of the hole and up at the fog, as if hoping to spot the moon and the stars. The fog blocks it all.
Staren	"From another world..." Staren repeats. Then looks at Ainsley. "Somehow, the Filth came to your world. Does mention of the Tzitzimime... mean anything to you?"
Ainsley	The dig is not pleasant. As they get deeper, there's a mucky scent... a burnt scent, like something had been burnt and buried in here. When they reach the bottom, it's with a little CRACK when a shovel smashes... a shell. Ainsley kneels to the dirt to push the dirt around with her hand, pulling out another shell. Wuyin's words occur to her. "Hmm. No, it doesn't, Staren, but--" Before she can get comfortable, or even stand up again, a horrific half-skeletal burnt corpse lurches out of the dirt and grabs at her with superhuman strength and tries to drag her down into the dirt, bone claws biting into her scales and dribbling her blood into the grave as she struggles against it. It's trying to drag Ainsley toward the huge star-filled maw that has soon emerged from the dirt, howling with awful eerie winds and distant feminine wails. She screams as loud as anyone has heard her scream and tries to electrocute it with her hands, but it doesn't seem to do jack squat to the creature, only succeeding in making it all the more menacing and awful that it's trying to bite her head off, wafting a burnt smell up into the graveyard. Genuinely, that is, in fact, how big it's distorted mouth is. If this thing was human or metahuman once, it certainly isn't anymore. If the others aren't careful, the oodles of rotting snakes that ooze out of the dirt will manage to clip them with their drunken snapping.
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone Yamakawa doesn't like what they are doing but they don't have much choice and she knows its she knows what bad news the Aztecs were. The followers of those gods down fall at the Spaniards was something she followed in school. She halts as she gets depp as something goes after Ainsley she moves to slam the thing in the face with the shovel using all 9of her agumeted cyborg strength. "GET OFF HER!"
Staren	As soon as the Warrior (?) lurches out of the dirt, Staren lunges for it. Discharging the beam cannons point-blank and then grabbing its arm, digging a beam saber in to work at severing it. However, his armor doesn't actually bestow /superhuman/ strength... but it does put him on par with strongmen. Will it be enough? "Attack! No... grab it!" The golems raise their shovels and swing once, then when Staren changes his order, they try to grab the monster and hold it so it can't return to the... star maw what the hell is even going on. Staren and the golems aren't particularly concerned about rotten snakes.
Wuyin Tsai	Shells break. Something moves, and Ainsley screams. Wuyin's reaction is immediate: he jumps. Wu clears the edge of the grave, getting back up onto the un-dug ground. He thrusts his hand forward and down, a flash of Anima and a flare of light accompanying an enormous bolt of fire flung at the starry maw. His left hand, held near his chest, ignites, a fiery torch shedding flickering light all around him. To be fair, he did not actually expect one to be in the grave.
Riva Banari	"Oh, right. We should probably be ready for..." Ainsley screams. "That. OH CRAP, THAT!" Riva yells, watching a totally new and unique horror spring up in the center of the pile of horrors that is Solomon Island. She could go for her guns, but instead she lunges straight into the grave, grabbing for Ainsley and hauling back, heedless of the snakes. Her feet kick at the Aztec horror as she pulls away. "LET HER GO!" Riva yells, desperately hoping someone can add some impetus to her demand. Like with murdering evil. That's always handy.
Emiya Shirou	The scream gets Shirou's attention even when Wuyin's explanation doesn't. The magus is up and standing in a few heartbeats. "...AINSLEY!" And stupidly rushing straight for the mess. Or maybe bravely. With the redhead swordmage here, it's... kinda hard to distinguish between the two. "Trace ON!" A crackling, sizzling lightshow of excessive prana use heralds the appearance of Yin-yang swords in his grasp. He hurls the first pair like arcing boomerangs at the guardian creature and quickly projects a second for a dashby slash. Except by the time he's lined up the dashby... -- "A-aaawgh!" Well the good thing is he wasn't BITTEN by the rotten snake, but he did trip over an emerging one. This sends him skidding and sliding head-first into a headstone. THUNK.
Ainsley	Ainsley is, thankfully, part of a group of people who will not let her get decapitated by horrible star demons. What does happen is that when the Tzitzimitl is attacked from multiple directions, it recognizes the threat of being in an enclosed space with a bunch of people who could spam magic attacks at it. Its intelligence is immediately evident in the way it retreats back into the dirt and, seemingly, vanishes. Only to pop out of another grave. It's easier to tell what its figure is, and what it is defies anatomical sense. It shudders and crackles as it moves and warps its own skeleton with its own monstrous movements, its immense and distorted mouth set in a mishapen head covered in long bloody white feathers, feathers that cover its back all the way down to its tail. It has FAR TOO MANY eyes, and its feet are just another pair of awful claw-hands, complete with warped elbows that clamber about as it skitters away from the group. They can see that their attacks did damage, with awful rotting blood spattering out of it. The spots that were hit by fire are /still/ on fire and it's spraying blood all over the place, which fades into ash on contact with the earth. Where wounds have been opened up, snakes hang loosely, but much more awake, because the pain has sobered them up. And trained eyes might spot something incongruous: There's a magical seal glowing on its back, or well, anti-glowing, if such a thing where possible to perceive by anyone in the group. When the Tzitzimitl skitters away, it vanishes behind a row of gravestones and a powerful force is emitted around the graveyard. Darkness descends over the graveyard, and the area grows still. All but for that awful, distant howling like dying stars and deadly space storms that fills the dark. It's possible to pinpoint where it's coming from, and it's easy to tell that it's moving around in the dark that was created when it seemingly devoured the nearby light. In this place, so far from the reach of the Sun, only Wuyin's fire is emitting light anymore, and it casts a circle that the Tzitzimitl does not seem to want to cross, staying outside of range of sight... seemingly just at the border, where light just abruptly terminates into awful smothering black. One can almost see stars twinkling in the black around them. Despite being grabbed, Ainsley slumps in the grasp of Riva's arms. There's several obvious snake bites here and there, which have bright red crackling glyphs around them. The color slowly drains from her where she got bit, and she seems to have passed out from the pain.
Staren	The monster is driven back into the grave, and Riva has Ainsley. Staren looks for the monster and as soon as it's visible again, sends a couple of armor-piercing missiles its way. The packs on his back ready to fire, but now its hiding in the darkness. "Ainsley! Are you alright?!" he calls, as he reaches into his bag and starts pulling out little LED lights and flinging them into the darkness all around. Ever since visiting the Izzet library he's known to make sure to have plenty of light sources on hand.
Wuyin Tsai	Wuyin keeps the fire burning. The circle of light is small at first, but he pours more power into it, extending his burning hand and feeding the flames. The circle expands, slowly but surely, big enough to keep the people near the grave inside but not much larger. Engaging it means going into the darkness or hoping it doesn't do something to hit them inside it. "Keep at it," Wu says. He tries to keep his eyes on the monster, but he's constantly looking over his shoulder, too. "If there is a guardian, what we're looking for must be here, too." Wuyin moves his right hand, the non-flaming one, towards the ground. He starts to split his attention, gathering Anima in the other hand. "I might have an idea, but it depends on if that --" He nods as Staren flings LEDs into the dark, "-- works..."
Emiya Shirou	Groaning but still full of heroic determination, Shirou forces his pained, dizzied body to move. He's up on his feet again in a hurry. Panting, a bit woozy, and bleeding from the forehead slightly (that won't last long, given Avalon...) Kanshou and Bakuya both vanish after he gets a few good looks at the situation however. It's dark. Insanely dark. This thing either chases away the light or devours it... but Shirou's guessing that light will be its undoing. The sight of Ainsley, agonized but alive, renews his spirit. "Don't go snapping up my friends like they're a meal, you monster!" The only question is still.... WHY was that thing there, but... "My body is made of swords." All at once, Prana sizzles, sparks, and swirls in Shirou's outstretched hand. "A-aughkghh--!!" And it hurts. Terribly. The pain however... is in his head. His head, which screams constantly, 'This is too much. No, man cannot make this!' Shirou's proven good at not listening to that voice. It takes a few seconds for him to regain some control of himself, regain his bearings... but the illusion's begun taking shape in his hands. He grips the incomplete projection immediately and breaks into a dash, yelling deeply the whle time. Except when he oes to strike witht he forming longsword. "A shell of steel... /with fire for blood!/" Fire indeed. Just as he leaps in to slash, driven by skill and intuition not his own - the sword finishes taking shape. A silvery and blue holy sword. Sunfire ignites from the hilt and races down to its point, burning without fuel or source and lighting up the night. "Hooooarghhh!" ... And that blade's brought against the creature with all the fury of a skilled, valorous, storied knight of legend. Shirou executes a swift combo that unleashes the flames, drives them into the beast--!
Riva Banari	Darkness descends, and Riva has a bad feeling about this void that seems to want to swallow all. She sticks in the light, hauling Ainsley to a lying position. "Oh God, I don't know how to heal this kind of thing!" She yells, and looks over the snakebites. "What the hell is this, evil Aztec runic snake poison?" she asks. "Ffffffffffffuuuuuuu-..." She sighs, shaking her head. "Well, let's try something." She grits her teeth, and then puts her mouth over the bites and tries to draw the poison out. God knows how this is going to work... And there's multiple bites. Everyone else is getting the fire on. Everything will be cool. Just keep saying it and maybe it'll come true.
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone hit with the shovel so hard regardless of what damage was done to the aztec horror? The thing shatters the handle becomes little more than splinters and Kotone is forced to throw the handle away and now she's going for her pistol nd trying to dodge the snakes. She's not certain the armor she has on will protect herself. She looks at the thing for a second she waits for an opening and opens fire for all the good it will do. She gets maybe one shot off but she's going to have to fight by Wuyins fire asshe teies to catch them by sound and movment in the dark.
Ainsley	Riva has some kind of effect. Except instead of drawing the poison out, the mark tries to steal Anima right out of Riva's body like a hungry parasite. It gives an idea of what the bite is doing to Ainsley, and it is INCREDIBLY painful when it happens. But without an actual bite mark, the worst that happens is a brief jolt. The bite is stealing magic directly from Ainsley...! The LED method is limited in effectiveness. The small lights are thrown into the dark, and it disperses it, but the Tzitzimitl lets out a loud cry of hatred and SLAMS its hand at each light as it comes into its domain, smothering the lights with loud shattering noises and loud rattlesnake fussing noises. It seems to move without concern for speed or the perimeter of the fire light, able to pass through the darkness as if it was at all places at once. This does, however, make it nice and easy for Shirou to pinpoint. He spawns the Tzitzimitl's truest enemy in the form of a sword, and it howls... in fear!! The darkness is obliterated before Shirou's charge, retreating before the reach of the Sun. The demon tries to retreat back, experiencing the strongest terror that a star demon can when it sees its adversary coming at it. The blade bites into it. And then again, and again, and the howls are replaced by the furious roar of a flame! The Tzitzimitl tries to escape back to the grave burning with intense golden fire! Snakes slough off of it and burn to ash, and for the briefest of moments, a small area of Kingsmouth is blessed with Sunlight as the dead star demon's very essence is converted back into fuel for the primordial fire. It lunges for the party, its snakes no longer snakes, but the wrathful tongues of fire that a star possesses. Its eyes are no longer eyes, but blackened sun spots. Its maw a swirling vortex of flame that demands fuel for the fire. They can already see it crumbling, but it's not giving up without a fight! It charges right at ... Ainsley!! The hungry bonfire tries to pounce on Riva and the prone lizard, though its weakness and slow speed show that it's only one good smack away from shattering like a big chunk of charcoal.
Wuyin Tsai	A hungry bonfire comes at them, rendered thus by a magic sword and the rage of a sort of demon-goddess. Wuyin wonders if this is something they left out of the legends. When it lunges forward, it's met with a blast of raw elemental force. A wave of heat washes off of Wuyin, the building energies converted into a fiery conflagration that rolls away from him as a wall of fire. A moment later, a storm of electricity replaces it, lightning scything through the intervening air, weaving around his allies and seeking the monstrous shape. A moment after /that/, utter cold descends. A wall of white, ephemeral cold explodes off of Wuyin, a sudden and abrupt gust like a focused, arcane blizzard, able to freeze even the most resilient of foes to the spot -- if only for a second. The light goes out the moment he lets it go. He's not sure if he got it; his vision is a little fuzzy. He isn't at 100%, not after the other day. Hopefully it'll pin it down for /someone/ to take care of the problem at the very least.
Staren	When the Tzitzimitl starts smashing lights, Staren fires the beam cannons at it, then draws... a regular pistol? And fires silver bullets. WHen Shirou bares it to the light, he fires several more to see if there's any effect. All the while asking about weaknesses and if Ainsley's okay. He's already started moving towards her to medevac her when the monster charges -- He stands between them and fires another, larger volley of AP missiles. Looks like he's not able to get her out of here without incapacitating this thing first!
Zephyr Windstar	Zephyr heard the screams, saw the darkness expanding, but couldn't find any way of getting through and into it to help. Just after Shirou brings the SUN into play, the Windmage finds an opening and surges through inside. She's just in time to see a husk of a monster lunging for her Sis and Riva. <BLITZ DRIVE! TEMPEST SABER!> A blur of purple, orange and yellow streaks in, and with a hot blooded kiai, Zephyr pirouettes into a full body horizontal slash at the monster. "YOU LEAVE MY SISTER ALONE!"
Riva Banari	Riva yells, cursing as there is an exquisitely painful feeling of consumption that radiates through her in a wave. She reflexively pulls back, letting go of Ainsley and clapping her hands over her mouth. "<MMPH MMPHLE MMPH!>" She mmphs, before shaking her head. Growing panic is clear as she waves her hands. "Staren!? Wu? I don't know what to do with this! It's eating her magic!" Moments later, the burning, howling horror just comes in screaming. Riva looks up at it, the fire burning reflected in her eyes for a moment, and she throws herself on top of Ainsley, attempting to shield her with her own body as the others strike at the horror.
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone Yamakawa sees they got the thing comming for them and that's where she starts shooting at it she knows it's going down and the thing is making for Riva and Ainsley and tha'ts when Kotone acts she shoots the Tzizimitl twice before rushing or it. She's not got magic right so she should not be high on it's list of food, still she opens up once more. "Get away from her!"
Emiya Shirou	Holy crap that actually worked?! As Shirou regains his senses from the charge and effort to project Galatine he's left staring bewilderedly for a brief moment or two at the freakish demon of darkness. Galatine's image wavers slightly but regains cohesion as he re-focuses willpower into maintaining it. "Ghhhh... I thought fire and light would repel it but... like that...?!" He's lucky it BACKED off instead of lashing out though, for SHirou would've been easily knocked aside with a counterattack in that brief moment of exposure. With a grunt, he raises the weapon again. The flame flickers, now lesser as Shirou's prana supply dwindles, but he maintains it. "Where'd it go...?!" Oh, easy enough to see. It's ON FIRE! And it's focused on hitting everyone else in a raging fury! Instead of charging again... Shirou takes a few steps and halts, realizing a better option. There's another sizzling display of prana, and soon a black greatbow of a western style - not his favorite but quite effective - is clutched in his left hand. Despite the western design he uses the Japanese drawing style to prepare his shot... with the burning sword as an 'arrow.' As he draws it back, Galatine slightly streamlines itself to be a better 'sword.' It's only slight modifications, slimming it, lengthening it, altering the weight balance a tad.. he's not good enough for anything too crazy. But then the sun-blade SHINES, HOWLS... and Shirou exclaims, "TAKE THIS, beast!!" The Galatine-arrow transforms into a roaring solar flare midway through its flight-- WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOSHHH!!! On impact with anything, the blade shatters moments after impalement, too weak to handle the impact. All of its prana is unleashed through the cracks, releasing a flare of sizzling sunfire every direction. The target? This creature's exposed back, such as it is.
Ainsley	The Tzitzimitl is halted in its tracks by the strike of magic, a tri-spell that slams into the awful creature as it smolders. However, it may have been a poor choice, because the magical fire makes it burn BRIGHTER as the anima slamming into it gets gobbled up, burning all the brighter. The AP missiles fly into the Burning Maiden... and then right out the other side with a trail of ash, finding no viable solid mass and slamming into the ground and a gravestone off in the end of their trajectories. Silver bullets? Similar, but harder to see the problem that is plainly displayed by the missile attempt. When the sword of Galatine slices through the air, it slams into the creature, creating more fire, but it screams in ANGER when the sword embeds into its back, and the magical seal cracks-- It turns its head and sees someone new coming in at it. Wind bellows toward it, and wind reveals the twisted ashen skeleton, pushing back the flames. It tries to reach out and grab Zephyr's face, but the horizontal slash had bisected it... and the strange pulsating object at its core. A small ornamental sun dial pulses in the air for a few seconds after the creature disperses into the air with a pitiful whimper and rumbling. The dial spatters red paint everywhere, and then explodes in a pulse of light. A suction sound occurs as the chunks fly apart, and then get dragged back to an infinitely small point at the center of where it started, dragging all of the paint out of the graveyard and the ash the demon left behind. When the effect ceases and the wind settles... All that's left behind is a shattered sun dial on the ground, emitting an acrid smell of burnt paint, just like the smell from Aztlan when the paint was attacked. "Hrnngh..." Ainsley groans, the marks fading and the feathered serpent woman trying to sit up. She gives a quizzical and haggard look at Riva, who is still sprawled on her, and then looks around. "... what happened?"
Staren	The missiles went /though/ it? Drat! Staren continues to interpose himself between the beast and Ainsley... but his allies finish it off. The sundial is... odd, but other people can investigate that. Right now, he needs to get Ainsley out of here! He turns to her, kneeling by her and placing a hand on her shoulder, about to start the teleport... when she stirs. "Ainsley! Are you okay? Is your magic still being sucked out?"
Zephyr Windstar	Zephyr growls as the monster dissipates, but the ire is short lived as Ainsley speaks up. She dismisses her Device and rushes over to Ainsley's side. "Are you hurt? We need to get you to medical... all of you." she ways, doting over the lizard girl and sounding just like a worried sister should.
Emiya Shirou	With that 'arrow' released... and the beast being sucked into a mystic singularity of sorts... and the horrific tension going away.. Shirou drops down to his knees, gasping for breath. He just burned a LOT of prana to create and fuel Galatine, a sword far beyond his level. It wasn't even the best recreation, but it could channel the sun's power. Apparently... that was enough. "What... the hell.... was that thing even doing here.... to begin with?" Shirou gasps out, simultaneously disbelieving and ANGRY. Up he stands again, and rushes over to Ainsley and the others. "Oi! Is everyone alright?! Ainsley?!"
Wuyin Tsai	Wuyin takes a minute to catch his breath. His muscles ache. It feels like pins and needles, or maybe someone jabbing him with very small knives. He clenches his teeth and steps forward into the ensuing quiet, forcing himself to take step after step until he reaches the broken dial. Wu bends down to retrieve it. They'd best make sure this is well and truly destroyed. "I think," he says wearily, "we found the connection." He shoots a look at Zephyr, and just shakes his head a little. The Union is going to have a field day with everyone else's injuries, if they're derived from a monster like that.
Riva Banari	The beast is annihilated in a very spectacular manner. Riva would be very pleased about this were she conscious of anything but a roaring, all-consuming thing coming for her back. But then it is gone, and Ainsley stirs. Rivs blinks, and looks down at her with surprise. "Ainsley!" She calls, and then she hugs, her. "Are you okay? Tell me you're okay." Wuyin's comment causes her to look over her shoulder and arch an eyebrow. "Can you explain for the class, Wu? I'm not feeling very brainy at the moment."
Ainsley	"What?" Ainsley's response to Staren immediately answers his question, with an added 'what the hell are you talking about?' look. She /did/ get knocked out before she really know what was going on. In the grand scheme of things, it could've been as simple as bumping her head. She looks over at Zephyr blearily, frowning at the concern... mostly because she's in a state of severe discomfort. Shirou's shouting startles her, and she looks over to Wuyin with a deeper frown. And then /Riva/ is asking if she's okay. Emotions well into Ainsley's face, but instead of answering that AT ALL, especially when she doesn't know the answer, she carefully peels the hugging Riva off of her, and touches Zephyr on the shoulder... She murmurs a "Thank you..." that sounds a little sad at everyone, and then takes a single step toward where Wuyin is and has to brace herself against a nearby grave stone. She puffs a breath, holding up a hand to the others, grunts, and then carefully shuffles, weakly, over to where Wuyin is. "It tried to eat my magic..." She mulls over that. "A Shade. The ... main threat to life in my world. But that one was far too solid. I don't..." She sets a hand to her face, closing her eyes, too dizzy to think on anything very hard.
Kotone Yamakawa	Kotone Yamakawa relazes slightly once the horror is taken down at last she lowers the weapon and holsters it she looks over to Shirou. "I'm fine but howa Sinsley?" She looks over to her and Riva hoping this new found information hasn't been found at the price of her frined." She starts to get the idea now wondering about things here. "...wait your saying the Aztec gods have eyes on your world?!" She honestly looks afraid at that thought, she's seen the history on her own world. "Unless we need to dig around a bit more we should get you to the Union's medical bay..."
Wuyin Tsai	"This." He holds up the broken sundial. "Smells like the painting in Aztlan did, when we attacked it. If I had a way to see such things, I would guess there's some kind of connection. That isn't my brand of magic." He bounces it in his hand. "If there were a connection to the Filth... well, that may explain how solid this Shade was." Wuyin pulls out his phone after a moment. He takes a few pictures of the broken dial from different angles. "And," he adds, "the paint is all gone. So unless you'd like to keep digging..."
Emiya Shirou	Seeing that nobody seems critically injured's a relief for SHirou but Ainsley's situation... "Just rest! We'll get you tho the hospital for treatment!" Shirou blurts out in a hurry, glancing about at the others. As far as he's concerned this is a pretty serious issue! He does stand up fully though and asides to Wuyin, "there was some kind of seal on its back. A binding spell of some kind?!"
Riva Banari	Riva frowns at Ainsley's response. She didn't say she was okay. With a grunt, Riva picks up Ainsley and looks to Zephyr or Staren. "One of you guys. You're faster. Get her to medical ASAP. Ainsley, just relax. We'll get you taken care of, okay?" In the meantime while the handoff is taking place, Riva looks over to Wuyin and screws her face up, thinking. "Our world's threats appearing there, and theirs here... How could this be happening?" She shakes her head. "We need to look into this more closely. Bring that dial with you, Wu. We have research to do once we get out of here."
Staren	As soon as Ainsley confirms that she's ready to go, they begin to glow as Staren's teleporter charges, and he helps her up to ride piggy-back. Their first destination is the entrance to the world tree -- Staren runs through to the gate, then through the warpgate tunnels until he reaches Njorun and teleports her to the medbay. Dawn has already called ahead, so presumably someone's already pulled up the file on Ainsley. Staren will follow her to her hospital bed if she feels like talking more.